Mogadishu, Somalia, July
23, 2011— Somali soldiers beat back desperate families with gun butts
Thursday as they fought for food supplies in front of a weeping
diplomat, a day after the U.N. declared parts of the country were
suffering from the worst famine in a generation.

"I will knock on every
door I can to help you," the African Union envoy to Somalia, Jerry
Rawlings, told the gathered families in the capital of Mogadishu.

Somalia's 20-year-old
civil war is partly to blame for turning the drought in the Horn of
Africa into a famine. Analysts warned that aid agencies could be
airlifting emergency supplies to the failed state 20 years from now
unless the U.N.-backed government improves.

"Corruption is a major
part of the problem in Somalia," said Rashid Abdi, a Somalia analyst at
the International Crisis Group. "This drought did not come out of
nowhere, but the (Somali) government did not do anything to prepare for
it. Instead they spent all their time fighting each other."

The U.N. has appealed
for $300 million to over the next two months and aid agencies warn it
will take at least $1 billion to provide emergency food, medicine and
shelter for 11 million people in East Africa until the end of the year.
Pictures of skeletal children and grief-stricken mothers stare out from
Western newspapers in mute appeal.

The suffering is real.
The U.N. believes tens of thousands have already died in the
inaccessible interior, held by al-Qaida linked Islamist rebels who
denied many aid agencies access for two years. The thorny scrub around
the overflowing refugee camps in Kenya is littered with tiny corpses
abandoned by mothers to weak to even dig their children a grave.

But Somalis will
continue to suffer unless the international backers who support the
Somali government also demand that it does a better job, said Abdirazak
Fartaag, who headed the government's finance management unit until he
fled the country after writing a report detailing tens of millions of
dollars in missing donations from Arab nations.

"The Somalis are very
grateful for what the internat7/8ional community is doing for them, but
they need to be a bit more forceful in holding our politicians to
account," Fartaag said.

Currently, the
government only holds half of the capital with the help of 9,000 African
Union peacekeepers. The salaries of 10,000 Somali soldiers are paid by
the U.S. and Italy, and the police are paid by the European Union.

The rest of
south-central Somalia is held by insurgents who kidnap children to use
as child soldiers and carry out stonings and amputations. Last year, the
group claimed responsibility for their first international terror
attack, killing 76 people in Uganda.

Abdi said some Somali
politicians continued to be corrupt because they gambled that the
international community would not withdraw its support and allow the
Islamists to take over the whole of southern Somalia.

"They know they're the
only game in town," he said.

There may be some small
signs of progress. This week, Somali President Sheik Sharif Sheik Ahmed
announced a new cabinet — the third in less than a year — and said his
government had deposited $500,000 for drought relief in a public account
that any donations can be sent to. Some displaced families in the
capital said the government had distributed bananas and dried food.

But Fartaag said tens of
millions of dollars more that could be used to help starving Somalis was
missing. The port in the capital declared revenues just over $13 million
last year, said port director Sayyed Ali Maalin Abdulle. Berbera port in
the northern breakaway republic of Somaliland makes at least $30 million
a year and is about a quarter of the size.

The E.U.'s humanitarian
aid chief said Thursday that the famine offers a fresh chance to push
for peace if local and international leaders step up.

"Perhaps we should see
this crisis as an opportunity for more attention to be brought back to
Somalia," Kristalina Georgieva told The Associated Press, noting that
the worst drought in the region for 60 years had hit Somalia hardest
because the government and infrastructure there are weakest.

"It might be that the
incredible tragedy in Somalia ... is an opportunity for a renewed
effort, and it has to be from the international community and the Somali
people themselves and their leadership," she said.

In the meantime, Somali
refugees continue to flood across the border into neighboring Ethiopia
and Kenya, where Prime Minister Raila Odinga said his government is
concerned about the security threat caused by the influx and he urged
aid groups to set up feeding camps in areas of Somalia not controlled by
the militant group al-Shabab.

"It is possible to set
up food camps there and tents so that they can live there," Odinga said.
"Once (refugees) come to Kenya they don't want to go back. They say it
is better to die in Kenya than in Somalia."